Victoria needs Super 12 team: Eales

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Wallaby great John Eales says rugby union needs an elite presence in Melbourne if the game is to capitalise on inroads made by Victoria's successful involvement in last year's World Cup.

Eales, who captained the Australian team to victory at the 1999 World Cup, said consistent free-to-air television coverage of the game's Super 12 competition - which is shown only on pay TV - was critical if rugby was to grow nationally.

He said the Australian Rugby Union should be willing to sacrifice money to achieve week-to-week mainstream exposure when it thrashed out a new TV-rights deal this year.

Eales, in Melbourne yesterday to speak to Victorian school teachers as an ambassador of the ARU's EdRugby program, said the Federal Government should look to include the Super 12 alongside international cricket and the AFL and NRL competitions in anti-syphoning legislation that ensured matches were available on free-to-air TV.

He said that although Victorian rugby needed first to demonstrate continued growth at the grassroots level, free-to-air TV exposure would be a critical component of a successful Melbourne bid to field Australia's fourth Super 12 team.

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"There needs to be ongoing exposure beyond the Test series to grow it, and definitely if Melbourne was to have a Super 12 team, you would want more exposure other than just Foxtel," Eales said.

Melbourne will host the Wallabies in a Test against Scotland at Telstra Dome on June 13 as the only follow-up to the World Cup matches played in the city last October.

Of the 280,000 people who attended Melbourne's seven World Cup games, about 60 per cent were Victorian. Eales said it was difficult to measure whether the ARU had dropped the ball in making the most of that incision into the competitive Melbourne sports market.

"It's hard, because on some measures there has been great capitalisation on the World Cup," he said.

"This year the VRU has recorded a 20 per cent jump in the number of teams taking the field compared with last year. This is a very healthy increase and shows that there is so much potential for rugby to continue expanding in Melbourne and regional Victoria.

"But for rugby to capitalise on the World Cup, it has to have a presence down here in Melbourne."

It is expected Australia will win approval for a fourth Super 12 team when it sits with fellow SANZAR nations New Zealand and South Africa to discuss the next TV rights deal. A fourth team could play as soon as 2006.

Eales said it was vital for the growth of Australian rugby that a fourth team was created, and he said Melbourne had strong claims to hosting it.